I will never, ever, ever take a plane again!
No way! Hope you go broke, fuckers!!!!!!
"NASA withholding data from pilot survey on air safety; Says results would alarm travelers, hurt airline profits" by Rita Beamish/Associated Press October 23, 2007
MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. - An unprecedented national survey of pilots by the United States government has found that safety problems such as near collisions and runway interference occur more frequently than previously recognized. But the government is withholding the information because it fears the data would upset air travelers and hurt airline profits.
[But they wouldn't hold back information about Iraq or 9/11 or... you get the point, readers!
More worried about PROFITS than PEOPLE, huh?
But they LOVE US so much they are PROTECTING US!
Pffffffffftttttttt!]
Last week, NASA ordered the contractor that conducted the survey to purge all related data from its computers. Reporters learned about the NASA results from one person familiar with the survey who spoke on condition of anonymity, lacking the authority to discuss them.
Thomas S. Luedtke, associate administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said revealing the findings could damage the public's confidence in airlines and affect airline profits.
[Who gives a fucking shit, asshole?! Un-flipping-fucking-real!!!]
Luedtke, in a letter to The Associated Press, acknowledged:
"[The survey results] present a comprehensive picture of certain aspects of the US commercial aviation industry. Release of the requested data, which are sensitive and safety-related, could materially affect the public confidence in, and the commercial welfare of, the air carriers and general aviation companies whose pilots participated in the survey."
NASA also cited pilot confidentiality as a reason, although no airlines were identified in the survey, nor were the identities of pilots, all of whom were promised anonymity.
[Oh, so the government puke LIED, hanh?!
What else is fucking new?]
The survey's purpose was to develop a new way of tracking safety trends and problems the airline industry could address. The project was shelved when NASA cut its budget as emphasis shifted to send astronauts to the moon and Mars.
[Needed the money for the wars, huh?]
NASA on Thursday had directed its contractor Battelle Memorial Institute, along with subcontractors, to return any project information and then purge it from their computers before Oct. 30."
[Did they salute Sig Heil, too!?]
"NASA Faces House Hearings on Air Safety" by MATTHEW L. WALD
WASHINGTON, Oct. 22 — A House committee... asked... said the National Aeronautics and Space Administration... to hand over an electronic copy of the data to ensure that it would not be destroyed.
Two people involved in the data gathering, who would speak only if they were not identified publicly because they had been ordered by NASA not to discuss the findings, said the answers indicated the Federal Aviation Administration had underestimated the rate of safety-related events.
[The AP reported only one? WTF?]
A NASA spokesman, David Mould, said Monday that the purpose of the study was “to develop methodologies” for analyzing data, not to find what the data would show.
[Pfffffttttt!
I'm gonna add up all these numbers here, but I don't want to know the total, I just want to know how I add them together!
Pffffffttt!
ANOTHER GOVERNMENT LIAR!!!!]
But Mr. Mould said the data from the questionnaires would be turned over to an airline pilots’ union and to a partnership between the airlines and the F.A.A., possibly by year’s end.
The deputy associate administrator for aviation safety at the F.A.A., Peggy Gilligan, said her agency had been briefed on the survey results but had not examined the underlying data. But she cast doubt on its value, saying the answers were not sufficiently detailed to determine, for example, whether two pilots describing similar problems were in fact talking about the same event.
[Then WTF WE SPEND the MONEY for the STUDY THEN?!
Good Christ!
Just got money falling out their assholes down there, but NOTHING for AMERICANS, huh?
I AM FUCKING SICK of the LYING and LOOTING by this SHITHOLE GOVERNMENT!!!!!!
Better, WISE UP SOON, shitfucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]
Ms. Gilligan and the agency’s acting administrator, Bobby Sturgell, said they did not know whether the NASA data in fact recorded higher rates than their agency did of events like planes coming too close on the runway surface or in the air.
[Yup, WE DUNNO!
What the fuck are you being paid for then?]
The F.A.A. said some problems covered by the questionnaire were becoming less severe, as measured by its own data, which it characterized as more detailed and rigorous.
[Oh, they kept their "own data, which it characterized as more detailed and rigorous," huh?
Then RELEASE the INFO!!!
And if the record-keeping is so anal, why did the DOD blaming the FAA for 9/11?]
The agency is undertaking an urgent program, with the airports and the airlines, to reduce the risk of runway collision, and has been criticized by the National Transportation Safety Board for not developing a cockpit warning system to prevent runway collisions. It is speeding the deployment of a system that warns tower controllers.
[And the "TERRORISTS?" Where are they?
Nothing since 9/11, huh -- at least, not yet?
But you had to go up my ass with the gloved microscope, huh?]
The Associated Press had sought the NASA survey data under the Freedom of Information Act. The news agency reported Monday that in a letter refusing the request, NASA said release of the data “could materially affect the public confidence in, and the commercial welfare of, the air carriers and general aviation companies whose pilots participated in the survey.”
[Or not: "No airlines were identified in the survey, nor were the identities of pilots, all of whom were promised anonymity."]
NASA’s mission includes helping to sustain the United States’ pre-eminence in aviation.
On Friday, Representative Brad Miller, Democrat of North Carolina and chairman of the Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee of the House Committee on Science and Technology, wrote in a letter to the NASA administrator, Michael Griffin, that possible damage to the image of the airline industry “does not appear to fall within any of the exceptions” to the Freedom of Information law, and that not releasing the information would be contrary to NASA’s mission of improving the safety and efficiency of airplanes.
Protecting airlines from public concern about safety, Mr. Miller said, was not part of the agency’s mission."
[But PROTECTING CORPORATE PROFITS IS?
Apparently so!
Whatever happened to that $15 BILLION in BAILOUTS, too?
Pfffftttt!
But you can freeze this winter, Amurkn -- after you have been thrown out your home!
Then your kid can get sick with no health care available.
Enjoying your bucket of shit, Amurkns?]
